Never Bitter, and all Delicious
by aRegularJo
Summary: Kutner wants what can't happen. Companion to "Bluebells in the Late December" posted in probably 4 parts.
1. Chapter 1

Hey all--another piece in the "Anticoagulation" verse, this one focusing on Kutner post-Thirteen's death. Everything will make lots more sense if you read "Bluebells in the Late December" and a little of "Anticoagulation." Of course, you should read them anyways :)

Don't own, never will.

Song title comes from The Pierces' "Three Wishes"

* * *

Kutner first notices Natesa when Tod is working on rehabilitating her shoulder down on the floor one day. He is working on his own patient, a much cooler patient, who has recently had a nerve implantation. Kutner actually collaborated on the nerve implantation, had worked on developing the new technologies. But he notices her looking at him. She's pretty. He gets a little self-conscious. On the fifth Wednesday, she asks him if he wants a cup of coffee. Having not been on a first date with a stranger in almost 10 years he says sure before he can think about it. He has been at Johns Hopkins for three months by that point, and he should be getting acclimated, right?

"So, uh, your shoulder?" he asks.

It turns out she'd injured it in a tennis match, nothing complicated, she says. She is a guidance counselor for a high school, and she uses the phrase "really fulfilling" to describe it. He can't find anything against her, so he asks her out to dinner that Friday. And then she asks him out to a matinee that Sunday, and soon it's late dinners on Tuesday and walking her dog together on the weekends. She pronounces him "quiet," which was okay with him because it saves him from having to explain things. She's funny, and _nice_, and he's OK with both of those.

But pretty soon (barely two months later) the one-year anniversary of Remy's death rolls around, and Chase and Cameron invite him up to their place, ostensibly because the girls have a dance recital and because he hasn't seen Rocco in five months, so the kid has apparently doubled in size. He knows that it is a cover, that they don't want him to be alone that weekend, and that they think he needs to be in Princeton, and he doesn't care and even almost appreciates their worry. He immediately agrees, has to tell himself to wait fifteen minutes to email Chase back.

Natesa, however, is surprised when he mentioned that he'd be going up to Princeton. "A dance recital, for your old friends' kids? That's so adorable! How old are they?" They're in her apartment, like always. Even though he moved partly to make a break, he can still trick himself into believing Remy's just around the corner in his new townhouse. Some days he feels her, and some days he just misses her. It's waves, slowly ebbing to evenness. The books and research all say _things come in waves_ and he believes them.

"The friends? Oh, about 43 and 45. So, average 44," he jokes.

She slaps him lightly with a towel, laughing, "That's pretty old for a dance recital."

"Oh, oh, you mean the _girls_," he says. "Elizabeth's eight; she's in third grade, and the twins, Sophie and Claire, are six. Kindergarten."

"They sound adorable," she says randomly. He doesn't feel like their ages justify the moniker 'adorable,' but they are three of the most adorable children born, ever, so he lets it slide. "They're all from Princeton?" He never mentions much about his past, but it's still an odd question. Of course the kids are from Princeton, if the parents are from Princeton. "Are they the girls in that photo in your apartment?" he's careful, usually, to tuck photos from Princeton in drawers when she's over (which is rarely), but he must have missed one.

"Yeah, I worked with their parents."

"For how long?" she asks. It's an odd thing to fish for, he thinks, randomly, but obliges because it's harmless. She's already told him about her last three relationships, her eyes filling with hopefulness every time that maybe, just this once, he might share something. He can't.

"Did I work there? Oh, about … nine years," he calculates. Six with Remy.

"Why'd you leave?"

"Needed … needed a change," he replies.

"You grew up there, though?"

"Close by," he says. He covered this once, he could have sworn. "Haddonfield. Anything else you need to know?" He doesn't mean for it to come out sharply, but it does, and she looks slightly stricken. "Sorry," he apologizes.

"No, it's fine … just whenever you feel like sharing, I'm here."

"Sharing?" he says. "We just spent 20 minutes talking about our days! I cooked you dinner!"

"Thank you for that," she snaps. "But you're 41 and you've never been married, you're Indian but you have photos of a white couple I can only assume are your parents, and I still don't know where you went to medical school!"

"Penn," he answers, feeling like _that_ is something he could have at least shared. "NYU for undergrad."

"Well, _thank you_ for exerting yourself," she huffs, flopping down on her couch.

He looks at her, then looks at the clock. "I should go," he says. "I'll give you a call when I get back on Sunday."

"Sure," she says, not looking at him. She sounds like she doesn't believe it, and he not sure he does either.

Even though it's only 7:30 on Thursday night and he told Chase not to expect him until Friday around one (he took the Friday off, some weird form of commemoration), he heads up immediately anyways. His bag was in the car, and he realizes somewhere around Newark, Delaware, that maybe he planned it this way.

The traffic on the Turnpike and on 295 is light, and he makes it there in slightly over two hours. He sits in their driveway for three minutes before realizing that it's stupid and there's no way he's going to pay for a hotel, and goes to ring the doorbell.

Cameron, in yoga pants and a mold-green cardigan, opens the door. She's a little shocked for a second, before breathing, "Kutner," and wrapping him in a tentative tug, which she gradually tightens. "I'm so sorry, you caught me off-guard, Rob said you weren't coming until tomorrow."

"Surprise," he says. "I hope this is alright."

"Are you kidding? Of course," she says. "We haven't _seen_ you for five months, you sure we can't keep you an extra night on the other end, too?" she steps aside to let him in. "Just be a little quiet—the twins are asleep, and Rocco just went down, too."

"How is Rocco?" he asks. He hasn't seen the baby since he was six weeks old.

She smiles. "He's finally sleeping nine or ten hours throughout the night, which _I _really appreciate. Right now that's a bigger milestone than riding bikes. Don't tell the twins."

"Our little secret," he replies. They're crossing the living room toward the back of the house, presumably to Chase's den. She knocks on the door lightly before pushing it open. "Hey guys, we have an early visitor!"

"Kutner! Kutner!" Elizabeth, wearing a lavender confection he can only assume is a dance costume, jumps up from Chase's lap. "Daddy said you were coming for my dance recital but he said you weren't here till tomorrow after school!" She wraps her arms tightly around his middle before holding up her arms, silently insisting to be picked up even though she's eight and well over four feet tall. "I've missed you! How are the crabs and clams? Can we come visit? You need to come back more often! You missed our class play, I was Sleeping Beauty. Mostly because of my hair but still I was pretty great. And can you convince Mum and Dad that we need a cat? Dad hates cats but I think he can be convinced. And House taught me a new trick the other day when I had to go to the hospital after school, it's super-cool but I need a cane to do it and—"

"Enough, Lizzy," her mother laughs, extracting her from Kutner. "Give Kutner some space. Don't worry, he'll be here for a while. Right now, it's your bedtime."

"No, Mum, no way! You let me stay up on holidays and weekends and this pretty much counts! I haven't seen Kutner since _Christmas_."

"Nope, if you fall asleep in class they say you're sick and then I have to come and pick you up. And you've been to the hospital once already this week and that is enough time hanging out with House."

"You let Rocco hang out with House _every _day," she pouts.

"No, I let Rocco go to day care every day. Miss Patty knows not to cave now. Come on, kiss Dad goodnight."

Lizzy obligingly kisses her father goodnight, and Cameron starts to usher her out but turns and says, "You two should go catch up. I've got everything under control here."

"Night Kutner," Lizzy says before running off, and a few seconds later he can hear her thumping up the stairs.

Chase flicks off the soccer game he and Lizzy were watching, and says, "Bar? Or beer from the fridge?"

He doesn't hesitate. "Let's hit up a bar."

"So how's work?" Chase says, smoothly driving the car-seat-stuffed SUV.

"Pretty good. Doing interesting work, with neurodegeneration and regeneration. Lots of recovery work," he likes the success stories, where he gets people through things, best. "How's PPTH?"

"Ah, you know, pretty much the same. Ally's worried that Wilson is lonely, House's lawsuit rate dropped to 35 percent and Cuddy sent his fellows cupcakes, House and Cuddy are on the ups after two months on the outs, House got a fourth fellow, the cafeteria stopped serving pot roast after House got into an altercation with a cafeteria lady, House continues to be the one person who matters in the hospital."

Kutner laughs gently. "Sounds like Princeton-Plainsboro."

"So, you decided you wanted to see the war zone that is our house on a school morning?" Chase finally asks, a half-hour later, as they're seated at a booth. "This morning, Claire dropped the milk, Rocco upturned a bowl of cereal, Lizzy used one of House's phrases on Sophie, Sophie hit Lizzy, I forgot to fill out two zoo-trip permission sheets, and Ally lost her favorite pearl earrings, which belonged to her grandmother, but they turned up in Lizzy's dress-up closet," he raises his eyebrows. "And I wish I could say that was an unusual morning."

"Hey, an extra pair of hands couldn't hurt."

Chase raises his eyebrows even higher before quipping, "You say that tomorrow morning and Allison will be hiring you as a nanny." Kutner laughs and sips his beer. "You OK … with the date and all?"

"Today I'm fine. Ask me again on Saturday," Kutner says, taking another sip of his beer. He knows Chase wants to know why he's up in Princeton so early. "So I'm kind of seeing this woman in Baltimore, and I told her tonight I was coming up here for a weekend, and she asked a few questions, so I decided to cut the night short instead of talking, and then I decided to drive up here. Pretty simple, really."

Chase plays with the label on his beer, which he isn't really drinking, anyways. Parents. "What sort of questions was she asking?"

"Oh, you know. Why I left Jersey after 40 years of living here; why my parents are white; why I've never been married; where I went to medical school."

He nods. "How long you been seeing her?"

"Maybe … I don't know, maybe since mid-March? It's pretty casual."

"Like her?" As an upstanding father, Chase is too classy to ask if he's slept with her, but that's basically what he means. Kutner chooses to answer the verbalized question.

"Yeah, I guess, you know. Her name's Natesa. She's a guidance counselor. Big Indian family. 29 years old. She's nice. Has a dog, likes romantic comedies but doesn't mind an action flick." Remy had liked raunchy comedies, liked sci-fi, thought most action flicks weren't thought-out. "It hasn't been that long, you know." He's never dated an Indian girl.

"Are you … ready to tell someone why you left Jersey and why you're not married at 42?"

"Hey, hey, 41, my birthday isn't for another three weeks," he says first. Then he says, "I don't know. That's why I came up here."

"Allison Cameron's home for wayward puppies will always take you in," Chase intones before taking a sip. "Come on, it's getting late, and you're on your third." Kutner's surprised to see that he is.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey guys—I split the first chapter into two. The third chapter is brand-new, though!

The next morning he's awoken by the twins running into his room. Cameron, Rocco on her hip, runs right after them. "Girls," she admonishes, trying to push Claire and then Sophie toward the door, "don't wake Kutner."

"Nope, I'm up," he says, rising. "Hey, girls," he scoops one under each arm as they cheer. They're adorable, they smile all the time, they think he's fantastic. He loves them.

"Kutner," Cameron says, smiling, "you should sleep."

"Nah," he says, swinging one onto each hip. He's Kutner, the coolest non-uncle in the universe. "Nah, I'm good. What do you two want for breakfast?"

"Peanut butter chocolate chip pancakes," they scream.

"What?" he asks, stumped. He wants to say _the hell_ but knows Cameron will punch him.

"Don't ask, it's this thing they came up with with Chase," she says, sashaying ahead of them to the kitchen. "Girls, we have Eggos or cereal."

"Cereal," they both scream, and Lizzy runs down and the three of them start fighting for his attention, and Chase materializes and starts pouring cereal and Cameron is still tending to Rocco and it's wonderfully chaotic. Somehow everyone eats a breakfast and Chase and Cameron play rock-paper-scissors to determine who has to walk the girls to the bus stop. Cameron loses, but pulls the feeding _and _the working-today trump cards, so Chase grabs backpacks and straightens socks and readjusts ponytails until all three are set, and then they all hug Kutner and dash out the kitchen door. Cameron has, of course, finished feeding Rocco, and Kutner insists on holding him.

"He's gotten big," he observes. The kid has downy blond hair and big, observant blue eyes. One day he will look exactly like Chase.

"He was about 9.5 pounds at Christmas; now he's 15.5. 25 inches long too," she says proudly. Somehow she's already dressed for work, now she putters around preparing her own food. "Do you want anything to eat?"

"Yeah, just some coffee, some cereal," he replies, bouncing the baby a little. "I can't believe you still haven't caved on the nanny thing."

"I've said a million times, I don't want my kids raised by a stranger. It's hard enough having a babysitter pick up the girls after school." Her tone is good-natured. "So the dance recital is tonight at 7 and then we have to go to a matinee encore tomorrow, but we figured you would probably just want to go tonight," she puts a bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee in front of him. "How're you doing?"

"I'm good," he manages, concentrating on swallowing the cereal. He hasn't decided if he's secretly wanted to be cornered by Cameron or not. "As well as can be expected."

"Rob—mentioned you were sort-of seeing someone?" Of course Chase told Cameron. She probably was worrying about why he showed up early.

"Yeah, sort of. It's nothing serious," he says.

"You like her?" she asks, biting her lower lip.

He shrugs. "She's—young."

"How young? This isn't illegal, is it?" she jokes.

He shakes his head. "No, she's 29. She pulled a trapezius playing tennis, I met her at the clinic."

"She nice?"

"Yeah, I guess. Big Indian family. Asks a lot of questions."

"Well, if she's worth it, she'll wait till you're ready to answer," Cameron tries, taking the baby back as Chase walks in.

"And another morning is _done_," he says, slumping into a chair. "Al, love, can you pass the cereal?"

"Yeah, sure," she says, scooting it down the length of the table as Rocco pulls on her necklace. "I'm going to head in—you still good watching Rocco this morning? I can call the daycare and see if there's room."

"No, we got him. We'll do manly things together," Chase replies.

"I _knew_ I was right when I thought you wanted a son." She leans over to kiss him.

"Healthy kids, that's all the ever matters," he swears, taking Rocco from her.

"I'll remind you of that when we have to sit through the same dance recital _twice _this weekend," she says. "Do you want to stop by the hospital at all today, Kutner? If Cuddy sees you she'll try to lure you back, I have to warn you," Cameron's smile is tentative.

Kutner shrugs and spoons some more cereal into his mouth. "We'll see," he promises.

"Alright, I'm out," she says. "I hate to rain on the manliness parade, but Rob, there's a grocery list on the fridge and you _have _to bake brownies because we're bringing some for Elizabeth's dance class. The mix is in the pantry. Two eggs, oil. It is not difficult. Do not get the eggshells in the batter." Kutner laughs, because Cameron is not the planet's best baker, either.

"Got it," he says, and Cameron kisses him quickly, before grabbing her purse and Longchamps tote and stuffing a million smaller things into the bags before dashing out.

"Told you—exciting mornings," Chase says, getting up with the baby. "It's much better than when the twins were babies and Lizzy was a toddler. God, those years were hell."

"At least you make beautiful kids."

"All Allison," Chase laughs. "She's also the reason they have clothes and are enrolled in, you know, school. Come on, let's make these brownies before we forget and there are tears. Lots of tears. Possibly some violence."

"Please, Cameron wouldn't be _that_ mad."

Chase looked at him skeptically. "Oh, god, she would be. And that's not even factoring in Lizzy's reaction."

"She's eight."

"House has her convinced that biting is still an appropriate reaction to anger."

"Dude, you should have _never_ introduced him to your kids."

"Please. You know that he started stealing Elizabeth out of daycare when she was six weeks old. Once he figured out how impressionable she was, it was all over. She told me not to be an asshat the other day." Chase carefully pours the brownie mix into a glass bowl and rummages in the pantry for a measuring cup.

"So you took the day off?"

"Someone had to make the brownies. Allison has a board meeting that won't be ending until 6:30, this thing starts at seven. Don't worry, though, Rocco's going into the daycare at one and then we can … do whatever."

"Until school pickup," Kutner chortles. It's nice, this haven, this glimpse of what a family is. After his parents died, he had an extremely normal childhood, but it's been bachelorhood or Remy since then, and the baby-and-sunny-kitchen thing throws him, reminds him. It's familiar, optimistic even, without being smothering. He's always been good at watching, and watching a complete family makes him feel complete. Cameron and Chase themselves are still fairly damaged, but they hide it for the girls and they're moving past their pasts simply by focusing on the future, and he's a little envious.

"I need to go to Wegman's, I have some video games and stuff if you want to hang around the house," Chase offers.

"No way, I love Wegman's. I'll just get ready," Kutner says.

So they do Wegman's and it's easy to pretend to be this normal. He plays with Rocco as Chase puts away the groceries. Kutner actually always did want kids, but falling in love had interrupted those plans. Remy had never been allowed to consider if she wanted kids, and he refused to look past her, even though she tried to make him do so several times. Even now, when he knows that he could, even should, start considering those things again, it is too painful, even on the days when he only misses her and doesn't suspect his presence. But Rocco is a cool kid. Kutner waves the blocks in front of his face and watches him laugh.

Chase pops his head in. "Hey, I know that we didn't need to go to the hospital until one to drop Rocco off, but House just called me in for a consult. I'll take Rocco. You can stay here and chill if you want. It shouldn't take too long."

"Ah, no, not a prob. I'll come in."

"You want to see House?"

"Please, like he and Cuddy won't pop by sometime by Sunday?" Kutner knows Cuddy, at least, can't stay away. "Lemme just grab my shoes."

Twenty minutes later they're striding in House's office, Chase confidently carrying Rocco and announcing, "I brought extra reinforcements."

"Chase, your kid's not that smart yet. Lizzy might be able to help us out," House throws back. "Oh, Kutner, he met _you_. Done hiding out in Baltimore? Ready to come back home?"

"Nope, just back for the weekend," he tries for cool and level and thinks he makes it. "What do you got?"

The youngest fellow, a brunette woman barely out of medical school (like all House's women) hands them her copy of the case file. "Yeah, you _really_ need an intensivist surgeon and a physiotherapist for this," Chase grumbles, bouncing the baby on his lap.

Soon they're lobbing diseases back and forth, and House dismisses the latest crop to run tests, and he starts arguing with Chase, pointedly ignoring Kutner. Cameron appears, rolls her eyes, and lifts Rocco from his father's lap.

"You want to grab lunch, Kutner?" she asks. "These two will be arguing for a while."

"Sure," he says, deciding that now is as good a time as any to get the Cameron thing over with. "Since when has House been consulting with Chase?" he asks as they walk down to the cafeteria.

"A few months ago—I think he's grooming him to take over one day but Chase's in denial," Cameron said, pulling her hair out of Rocco's hands. "He calls him in at least twice a week for a consult, the fellows have started using him as a screen so House doesn't yell at them as much."

"How are you liking heading research?" he asks, because Cameron's recently received an expansion of duties.

"Great. Paperwork is _fascinating_," she says lightly, and Kutner knows that she actually does like it. They grab sandwiches and head outside. Cameron has, weirdly, packed a picnic blanket in her bag, and he spreads it and they sit before she asks, "So the girl? The job?"

He laughs, tries to deflect. "What's new with you?"

"I've been taking care of kids, husband, job, House, Wilson, me, basically in the order, for the past eight years. The only thing that changes is the size of the kids," she replies. "Your turn." Sitting there, Indian-style with the baby in her lap and her locks (still long and blonde, again) flowing over her shoulders and the hint of crow's feet tugging at her eyes, Cameron looks, suddenly, incredibly wise. She's sort of a Mother Goddess, like the foreign sketches in the _Hinduism for Dummies_ textbook he purchased when he was going through a self-identification phase in his 20s.

"Ok. So, job's good," he says. "They do a lot more cutting-edge stuff in terms of physical rehabilitation, we're working a lot on combination therapy for accident victims, for victims of genetic diseases—" he can't continue from there.

"Tell me about Natesa," she says. "Or we can talk about Remy." He flinches at the name; Cameron always called her Thirteen, except to her face. "It had to come up," she says, gently touching his forearm. He knows it; if he had really wanted, he could have avoided Cameron, and this conversation, all weekend, but he willingly agreed to lunch and implicitly to this conversation.

"Natesa's good," he says. "She's happy. It's a reminder that, you know, a relationship is not always a Shakespearean tragedy."

"I'm sure she's got a dark side buried somewhere," Cameron remarks, chewing on a carrot.

"I'm not really sure she does," he replies.

"I thought Chase was an ass who bedded nurses as a hobby for almost a year," she points out.

"True," he says, "but she talks so much—in the good way, the way I used to share random things—and she doesn't seem to be … that way."

"Kutner, did you ever think that maybe you talked about the mundane things to avoid the bigger stuff as, you know, a way of coping? I'm not saying she has a twin who died of leukemia when she was 15, but give the girl a chance."

He sighs; he's not articulating this well. "I'm not saying that I require her to have an awful past—God knows that I have enough for four or five people—but I don't want to bring her in, if she can't handle it, and I don't want to test whether or not she can handle it. Plus," he tugs at a clump of weeds until it loosens, "the anniversary, the time—I don't know what I want, or when, and being in Baltimore doesn't help." He moved there for a clean break, and instead it just makes him feel like he's living a stranger's life every morning.

"It really, really sucks," she says softly, and he can't help but notice that she's got one eye on Rocco still. "And—there's no appropriate time length; you know that. But don't let it get to the point where you're just punishing yourself by trying to remember. That's when you get to let go. Continually punishing yourself just makes it even harder when you're well past time to move on."

She reaches out to rub his forearm, and he can't look her in the eye. He and Cameron—and Wilson—are a club, the Significant Other Survivorship Club, and while he's always questioned the legitimacy of both their claims (Wilson's especially; that relationship was nebulous and the death was unexpected and quick), now that he's in the club, too, their meager months of relationships are the only thing he has (besides his membership, with House and Chase, in the Tough and Tragic Childhood Club). He suspects their joint membership fed into Cameron's desire to make him talk; she obviously can't talk about continued processing of her dead husband with her live one.

"I expected to roll on much easier," he finally admits, and it feels awful. He's always been upward, always been able to get over things. "It's the way it always works. You put it in a box, you put on the good face, you remind yourself that you like to be on the outside. You live in that moment and that one alone. And she'd been so damn _explicit_ that I was to move on, and live in the new moment. And I told her I would, and now I'm suddenly unable to." He'd just started working again this January; he'd had seven months to grieve. He still felt dull, the compulsion to preserve her and her memory overwhelming him, filling him up and giving him a headache not even codeine could deaden. He aches and he misses her, but he isn't _sad_, exactly, and he's confused.

"I remember the two of you at the twins' first birthday," Cameron suddenly recalls, changing tack. "It was October, but it was _hot_, and it wasn't one of Thirteen's best days; she was pissed about it. And you just … you fed her, her legs were in your lap, you got her to laugh, to hold Sophie—she was always so scared of getting close to the girls—and just the way you two _looked_ at each other—Kutner, there's no way that you could just smoothly compartmentalize that. And it was so _rational_, the way she …so you feel a little awful, because in hindsight you feel a little angry at yourself for putting yourself through the agony, you wonder sometimes how worth it all this leftover pain is, when you already knew how it would end long before it started. And so you just bury it more and it twists."

She's exactly right, and he averts his eyes. He had even more of a warning, had an even slower descent than Cameron, had three times that Remy told him to leave her, trying to protect him from this sucker-punch of hurt that doesn't leave. "You have no idea how long it took me to be able to say that out loud without feeling guilty," she says.

"Yeah," he says, "but it's been a year, and I still don't know what I want. You keep going for one direction for so long, and suddenly you're there and you have to … regroup. I'm not mourning, really, I just don't know what to _do _anymore. And I don't want to … move on." He never talks this much, especially about his feelings, or uses sentences so long, but he supposes it's necessary. He can't tell if he's thinking magically anymore or not, and it's a near-crucial step now.

"Do you want the kids-family thing, though you can't have them with her?" Cameron's much blunter than House gives her credit for. She's just as nosy as he says she is, though.

He stares at Rocco. "I honestly don't know. I always said it depended on the person." He would want them with Remy. That's actually all he really wants, but he can't have that. That's what it boils down to, not if he misses her or still feels her or has or doesn't have roots in Baltimore.

"Then there's nothing wrong with giving yourself options. Look," she starts fluffing Rocco's hair, "I once smacked my sister for saying, 'it's what he would have wanted,' but Thirteen was paranoid for her last five years that she was depriving you of your happiness. And while she wasn't at the time, don't turn yourself into a martyr. Honestly? It's not worth it. It just makes it harder. You don't need to have to decide to make Natesa carry those children, but you can to commit yourself to being okay and finding a direction and moving _toward_ it. The scary, sucky, awful, borderline-betrayal moment isn't when you sleep with another person, or even start a relationship with another person—it's when you let yourself set goals in your personal life again.

"And for me, that came," she pauses to calculate, "about 14 months after Robert and I started dating, which was three months after we started sleeping together regularly, which was a year and a half after we slept together for the first time. Which was over a _year_ after I knew he wanted to sleep with me_. _Which was seven years after my husband died. You get the picture?"

He does: A couple with all the time in the world to mess up, and break up, and make up. And suddenly that possibility is open to him, and that scares him. "Yeah," he says, "and I shouldn't be _this_ any more, but I … I am. I don't like it much."

"Are you spinning out of guilt, or grief? Be honest," she says. She's getting at feeling/missing, he can tell, in her own way.

"Guilt is grief," he retorts.

"Do you need to tell yourself it's OK to feel OK, or do you need to tell yourself you're OK?"

"I want it to be the second," he finally answers, "but mostly it's the first, combined with just _missing_ her."

"There's no pace, and it's going to affect you for a while," she repeats herself after a long second, "but I don't want you to be in pain any longer than necessary. Don't let that year of magical thinking become a decade. I did it, and I just hurt me, hurt Robert … And I don't want you to do that to yourself. Or even Natesa. It's going to be hard no matter what. Punishing yourself only makes it worse. It's OK to feel good sometimes. You spend all your time taking care of people. Take care of yourself, right now," she tilts her head and scrutinizes him. "You know, I think you _are_ OK. You can miss her so much it hurts and still be OK."

He laughs. "I worked for House for three years. Nobody's OK if they agree to that and then tough it out."

She laughs, too, and moves to stand. She shifts Rocco onto her hip. "I should get him to the daycare," she muses.

"Is there a … plan for this afternoon?" he feels like he should defer to whatever works for Chase, Cameron, and the kids. He folds the blanket and hands it to her.

"Sort of. This one is going into daycare so Chase can get the girls ready for their recital with minimum distractions. They get picked up at 3:15 and need to eat before being at PHS—sorry, the _recital hall—_at 5:30. Then he gets to run and pick up Rocco from the daycare and take him to the babysitter's," she says. "And then I'm out of my meeting by 6:30, so help me god, and the thing starts at seven and should be done by 10, if the dress rehearsals are to be believed."

"How are you not constantly exhausted?" he asks.

"Coffee. I cannot wait for the day when _all_ of them are too big to be picked up and have cars," she says. He knows she both loves them and thinks it's ironic that she's boring, married, possibly happy. "You should go somewhere this afternoon. See other friends."

"You mean House?"

"I mean whoever you want," she replies.


	3. Chapter 3

Likely one more section coming! Thank you for reading/reviewing.

* * *

He heads to House's anyways, and sees him paging through a file at his desk through the glass. House looks up as soon as he enters, and he says, "Oh, no. Oh, no. Out."

"Hi, House," he says, stepping in.

"Did you not hear me?"

"I'm doing that thing where we ignore you."

"Did you not come up here expressly to mope and hold hands and cry with Cameron? If you need more testosterone in your support, go see Wilson. Or Chase. He might be sympathetic for two minutes."

"You think I came here looking for support, _from_ you, when I have at least four other doctors to go to if I wanted to cry?"

"I think there's plenty more than four. Go check Oncology, Psych, and Peds, in that order."

"Nah, I just wanted to hang out."

"Seriously? We are not shooting the breeze."

He shrugs and sits down. "How's your latest case?"

"You cannot just _hang out_ in my office."

He looks into the conference room. "Can I prank the new fellows?"

A thoughtful expression crosses House's face. "What do you have in mind?"

Kutner shrugs. "Take the screw out of the whiteboard, then you tell one of them they can touch it. It falls apart, you yell, they cry."

As House watches him carefully remove the screws, he suddenly groans and says, "Don't listen to Cameron. Whatever the hell she said."

He looks at House sideways. "We talked about Rocco."

"Like hell you did. Cameron's worldview says there's only one way of coping with thing _x_, and it's her way. And her way is the way that makes you feel best, but only if feeling smug and superior is how you feel best. So do whatever the hell you want and politely don't listen to her. Or not politely. It's up to you. Deal with it however the hell you want. If you wanna jump the chick, jump the chick. If not, well—something's probably wrong with you, but just go for it."

"Cut Cameron a break. It's not anything I haven't heard before."

"That's because Cameron is the queen of conventionalism."

"You really don't like the whole suburb routine they have down."

"Not really, because she's just redirecting and he's repressing, but the point is—dying changes everything. You were an idiot to fall for her but you did, and now you're here, and you shouldn't listen to Cameron preen on about how she wrecked her life playing tragic widow for a decade but now has _just the bestest life ever_."

"She's trying to help."

"She can't not help. You're fine, do whatever you want. Yeah, maybe everything changed, but guess what? Life goes on, and nobody cares that you move on, too. You already _have _gone on just because of the laws of time, so don't pull that crap about not being able to move on, either."

He stares carefully at the board. "I've got all the screws out."

"Perfect timing," House breathes. Kutner turns. The four fellows—slim, serious, dedicated young doctors—are walking down collegially. Two of them hold folders. He steps back, watches the differential. With a flourish and a half-bow, House hands the marker to the Asian guy. The board clatters to the ground with a splendid, thunderous noise, and House yells until all four leave.

House turns to face him and smirk. "Great plan, Kutner. Now you get to put it back together. I'm a cripple, and all."

Cuddy finds him still replacing the screws, and she hugs him before peppering him with questions about Johns Hopkins, the administrators, and their policies. This goes on for a good 20 minutes before House yells at the "little woman" to leave Kutner alone, so she finally tells him she's happy to see him, and she realizes the time of year, but "if you ever want to come back to work, here, please give me a call immediately and you will have a job before we hang up."

He finally leaves the hospital a little after 3:30, and decides to walk the three miles back to Chase and Cameron's. It's not long, and there are sidewalks the entire way. The day is a little hot for May, but not too bad, and he scrutinizes cloud shapes, trying to find a symbol or message. He fingers his cell phone and wonders whether he should feel guilty for not wanting to talk to Natesa, maybe ever. He has several missed calls and texts from Chase but knows he'll see him soon enough.

He detours for ice cream, though, and it's well past four when he finally makes it back to their house. Chase is in the kitchen with the girls; he's reading paperwork while Elizabeth and Sophie eat macaroni & cheese and Claire eats a PB&J. "Did you walk back from the hospital?" he asks in awe.

"Yeah. It's only three miles," he says. "I was talking to House." Chase raises his eyebrows but says nothing.

The rest of the evening passes as a blur. Cameron has packed garment bags for each girl, and they load into the car and get to the high school early so that another mother can do their hair. Chase and Kutner go pick up Rocco, sit with other parents and save a seat for Cameron, who rushes in. The dance recital is deadly dull, but the girls all seem to enjoy it, and everyone goes out to ice cream before they take the kids home. After Chase helps get the sugared-up kids into bed, he hauls Kutner to a bar. They drink without speaking and Kutner throws up in the restroom before they head home.

The next morning—Saturday—he's awake immediately, no heady, hungover in-between. His eyes snap open, and that's that. He rolls them over to the clock and notices that it's a little before eight. He's not sure how he feels about that. Tossing on his bathrobe, he pads out to the kitchen. Cameron is there, in several pink tank tops and a blue-gray wrap cardigan and pink-and-green striped pajama pants.

"Morning," she says, quiet and surprised. "Would you like coffee?" She gets up to pour him a cup before he even says yes. She puts it in front of him before asking, "How did you sleep?"

He shrugs and sits down, tugs the sports section loose. "Restlessly," he finally replies.

"The girls should be out for another several hours," her volume is nearly at 'mute.'

He nods. He doesn't know what to say, and neither does he. The weight of the One Year Anniversary is beginning to sink in. He wonders if he should feel any freer, because he doesn't.

"Would you like something to eat?" she asks.

"Not hungry," he manages, shaking his head.

"You sure? I can … make something."

He's tasted Cameron's 'somethings,' multiple times, so he shakes his head again. "It wasn't this nice, last year, was it?" he questions, staring at the perfect May sky.

"No. I think it was cloudy," she says.

"I don't really remember," he finally admits. "We were inside most of the day." She had died late, around 10:00 p.m., after insisting she be taken off the respirator.

"True," Cameron says, and he sees her, hovering on the edges of his memories. "The … service was on a beautiful day, though."

"Do you ever wonder if the weather means something? Like, would bad weather be a good sign?" He sees it almost as an inverse omen of good: Rainy, cloudy weather signifies a mourning world. A mourning world is a world that will be worse without Remy. Staring into his coffee, he remembers both those days; he feels aches where he once felt pain. The fact that he can only feel how the pain once felt means something, he knows, but he can't quite face it yet, because the realization fills him with sadness again.

"I don't know," she finally says. "The day he died it was a squall. Awful October weather in Chicago."

"That's what I mean," he says. "Someone was pissed that day." He doesn't believe in 'up there' but it's nice right now.

Chase comes in, hair sticking up comically, and yawns before beelining toward the coffee.

"Are the kids up, Rob?" Cameron asks, drumming her fingers on the coffee cup.

"You'd know if they were," he replies. He looks at Kutner and nods briefly. "Sleep well? That mattress is a bitch."

"_Chase_," Cameron hisses warningly.

"Sod it, they're asleep," he rolls his eyes.

They're not for long, though, and there's shrieking and crying and somehow Chase knows how to make them laugh and Cameron knows how to comfort them.

"Kutner," Claire tugs on his arm. "Can you pour my cereal please? I'm not allowed to." He shakes himself loose and pours the Kellogs obediently. She hugs him tightly in return. This is, of course, Claire—who would try and hug a snake if her mother would let her, because she loves hugging—but they way her soft hair knocks into his stomach lands a sucker-punch to the gut. Once she lets go she reaches for his sleeve again, and he bends down to meet her. She's rapturously beautiful, with messy dark hair and wide green eyes.

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember Remy?" she asks in her shy voice. "You were always with her."

His life catches in his throat. "Yes."

"I miss her. You two were fun," she says.

"Claire! Claire! Look! Milk bubbles," Sophie yells, and Claire's attention is diverted before he can respond. Her words hit like sucker-punches. He sinks into a chair and Cameron and Chase maneuver the girls around his ragged form. After the girls finally head upstairs (to change for their dance recital encore) he stands and says, "I think I'll go on a run."

"Kutner—" Cameron starts, but Chase very obviously shushes her. He's out the door in five minutes flat, running in a way he hasn't done since he was six.

Princeton was actually quite small, despite everyone's instant familiarity with its famous name, and it only took him half an hour to jog to the cemetery. He finds the small off-white stone easily, and remembers the battle he had with her father to let her rest here, and not in New Brunswick. It's simple and engraved. He sits in front of the stone, and suddenly has nothing to say. So he leans against the one opposite and catches his breath. He's not one to talk to inanimate objects, and so he sits, and waits, and watches. For what he's not sure. He thinks of the waves, the waves of grief, and realizes one is cresting right now.

Finally, after an indeterminate amount of time, he says, "I miss you," as a test. Nothing happens. It's impossible to get a benediction or a blessing from a god you don't really believe in, and sitting in front of a stone and not a person is not a conversation.

It's hot and sunny and he's lured into a silent, sleepy stupor for a while, where he can't cry nor move. But it's calming, a break from decisions, and he contemplates literally staying there all day.

But then something eclipses his sunlight, and he opens his eyes to barely make out the outline of Taub's face.

"Don't you live in Florida now?"

"Yeah, I do," Taub says, crossing his arms and squinting even though he's wearing sunglasses. "Chase invited me to go out for a drink tonight." He wonders who else he can expect to offer support. Wilson? Cuddy? Foreman? The last thought makes him want to laugh maniacally.

"You're a little early for a drink."

"Yeah, well, flights from Florida are unpredictable." He sat down, leaning against the next stone. "Not bad. Warmer than I thought."

"Why are you here?"

"I got to Chase's. I called him because they weren't home. Apparently the girls had to be at the dance recital at noon, and so they were there, but he said that you'd gone on a run. I thought I'd find you here."

"I'm not that creative," he says, as a way of rationalizing Taub's appearance, here.

"You're extremely creative. You're also predictable."

"Everything's predictable if you look hard enough," he replies automatically, tying into Taub's secret desire to actually be House. Implying that he has solved something masterful will inflate his ego. "How's Rachel?" he asks.

"Good. Busy, with Sarah."

"How's Sarah?"

"Good. She's liking kindergarten. How're you?"

"Good."

"That's why you're sitting at a grave?"

"My girlfriend died a year ago today. Excuse me."

"Thirteen would laugh her ass off at the thought of you trying to commune with stones," Taub points out. "How long you been our here?"

"I'm commemorating. Meditating."

"Yeah, she wouldn't like that much either. She was always one for action," he says. Kutner remembers what House eventually dubbed her "lesbian phase" and knows that he would have to agree.

"I can get one day to do it my way," he says instead.

"You got that day. You've had 365 of those days. Hell, you could have started mourning the day you first hooked up." Taub's voice is not unkind, which is a big deal, coming from Taub, but his words are too blunt. "She did."

His breath hitches. He knew that, of course, that Remy had accepted and coldly anticipated her death since long before they became anything. He knows that he was probably more invested in them than she was because of this, and he knows he was stupid for actually pretending it _might_ not happen. You don't beat a genetic disease.

But he looked before he leapt and now he's here, stuck between wanting to move on and wanting to remember, and knowing that House is right, because House is always right, and that he's moved on already.

"Is this helping?" Taub asks, impatiently.

"Not when you're just standing there," Kutner lobs back. "I just want … a minute, okay?"

Taub looks at him appraisingly, and Kutner knows he wants to call him an idiot. He can't explain it, so he doesn't try; Taub finally retreats to behind a tree.

He can't decipher his feelings, though, can't separate the shock from the numb and the anticipated from the actual. Frustrated, he turns and meetings Taub, waiting expectantly at the tree.

"Do you feel emotionally whole again?" Taub says, not unkindly.

"Can you give me a ride back?"

"That's why I'm here."

They trek across the shiny grass for a while, before Kutner finally says, "Do you think Cameron invited Foreman?"

Taub snorts and shakes his head, and they head back to the house.


End file.
